Review: Vendetta by Catherine Doyle

An action-packed modern day Romeo and Juliet, Vendetta is an amazing start to the Blood for Blood trilogy.

Vendetta summary

When five brothers move into the abandoned mansion next door, Sophie Gracewell’s life changes forever. Irresistibly drawn to bad boy Nic Falcone, Sophie finds herself falling into an underworld governed by powerful families.

When Sophie’s own family skeletons come to life, she must choose between two warring dynasties – the one she was born into, and the one is is falling in love with. When she does, blood will spill and hearts will break…

My thoughts

Vendetta is a modern-day retelling of Romeo and Juliet, but it’s also much more than that. Centred around the brilliant, believable character of Sophie Gracewell and her encounters with a family of five particularly attractive brothers, this book is a teenage girl’s dream. It’s full of adventure, mystery, action and romance, and it’ll have you hooked.

If you haven’t guessed already, I really enjoyed this book. It’s action-packed and I totally agree with Chicken House publisher Barry Cunningham’s comment about Vendetta being a lot like reading a movie: every scene is easy to visualise thanks to Catherine Doyle’s brilliant writing style and there isn’t a dull moment. Plus, the romance is pretty perfect.

But that doesn’t mean I didn’t hit a few speed bumps along the way. First up, as a thriller you’d expect a lot of mystery from this novel, and yes, you get it. However, there are A LOT of hints that meant I figured out the main twist very early on. The amount of times Sophie felt like there was “something familiar” about someone or something was a bit excessive and therefore made the twist quite obvious (to the reader, but unfortunately not to Sophie).

I’d also say that a major part of the twist was a bit odd. I don’t want to spoil it for those of you who’ve yet to read Vendetta but I’d suggest that, when the twist is very, very closely related to a HUGE part of the main character’s life, it’s unlikely that a quick Google of the matter would be the key to unravelling the secrets, right? I’m pretty sure Sophie would have Googled it a long time ago…

And then there’s the actual twist, which is really difficult to talk about without giving everything away so I’ll move on quickly but I’m not sure it’s morally correct. I mean, doesn’t Sophie realise how wrong it is to be mixed up in all this? It’s BAD Sophie. Really bad. Bad bad bad. So stop all the snogging and run away already, alright?

Also, did anyone else notice how often Sophie bumped into people in Vendetta? I think someone needs to go to Specsavers.

I found myself on team Luca by the end of this novel, which is by no means a bad thing but I’m not entirely sure that’s even supposed to be a team at all. Am I alone in that one? Let me know in the comments.

Overall, I loved Vendetta, although I expect I’d have loved it even more as a teenager. It’s got the perfect mix of drama, suspense, mystery and swoon-worthy boys, and it’s not even over yet – Vendetta is part of a trilogy and I’ll definitely be picking up the next book in the series when it arrives.